Spanning Malaysia’s post-independence period and using the repression-mobilization nexus as a key theoretical framework, this study outlines how its Christian community delicately and... Show moreSpanning Malaysia’s post-independence period and using the repression-mobilization nexus as a key theoretical framework, this study outlines how its Christian community delicately and simultaneously defends its religious rights without being construed as anti-Islam in the face of state-led “Islamization”. This study charts the changes in the community's resistance tactics by primarily focusing on the 1980s to the contemporary period while considering subnational differences between East and West Malaysia. It explains why it adopted a non-partisan and non-violent approach despite targeted repression. In outlining the interplay between a minority community’s mobilization and national-level contestation, it focuses especially on the role played by the Christian elites. Additionally, it raises key questions that remain relevant in the study of contentious politics: How do minority communities in semi-democratic contexts protect their rights? What are their options and constraints for resistance? And how do changes in the political environment mould their strategy and resistance tactics? Show less
Since before the American Civil War, African American and Japanese encounters produced relationships and discourses of knowledge that transcended Eurocentric conceptions of civilization and... Show moreSince before the American Civil War, African American and Japanese encounters produced relationships and discourses of knowledge that transcended Eurocentric conceptions of civilization and hierarchies of personhood. 'Black Transnationalism and Japan' introduces the diverse activity and intellectual movements created, shaped, and led by Japanese and African American people. While some Pan-Asianisms and Pan-Africanisms urged a uniting of colonized spaces against the colonizer, and were often expressed in the form of decolonization movements, this volume introduces various transnational phenomena that transcended such dichotomies. Black American-Japanese transnational encounters often occurred on the non-state level from within the two new competing empires of America and Japan. Such transnational encounters reveal not only heretofore hidden historical actors, friendships, and solidarities, but also innovative cultural productions that challenged hierarchies of race, culture, and imperialism. Show less
‘The Civil Code Controversy in Meiji Japan’ outlines a dramatic history of the failed liberalization of Japanese private law during the Meiji era. Once Japan overthrew the shogunate and fully... Show more‘The Civil Code Controversy in Meiji Japan’ outlines a dramatic history of the failed liberalization of Japanese private law during the Meiji era. Once Japan overthrew the shogunate and fully opened up to contact with the world, modernization of the backward country and its fragmented customary legal system became a crucial objective of the new ruling elites. The initiated codification of law included the drafting of the first Civil Code, designed to revolutionize the traditional societal ties in Japan. The legal project, seemingly straightforward, turned out to be notoriously difficult and dragged on for three decades. More importantly, it led to a national controversy, dividing the Japanese jurisprudence into two opposing factions, which supported drastically different visions of the Civil Code and, thus, the country's future. The presented book is not only an account of Japanese legal history. It depicts the fierce fight between liberal and conservative jurists who believed in protecting society from the law’s harmful effects. The discussion on the Civil Code transcended the classical legal dispute, touching on the Japanese people's historical, political, societal and cultural identity. Show less
Nakane, Ikuko; Maree, Claire; Ewing, Michael C. 2023
This book presents a previously unpublished historical translation of a Naxi manuscript by a Dutch missionary translator, alongside an ambitious new annotated translation providing near... Show moreThis book presents a previously unpublished historical translation of a Naxi manuscript by a Dutch missionary translator, alongside an ambitious new annotated translation providing near-unprecedented detail and information about the world’s last surviving “pictographic” script: Naxi dongba. Show less
This volume is the first of its kind in offering a history of hundred years of Republican history through expert introductions to 100 sources on various themes of politics, economy, society,... Show moreThis volume is the first of its kind in offering a history of hundred years of Republican history through expert introductions to 100 sources on various themes of politics, economy, society, culture, gender, and arts. In doing so, this project will not only tell a truly multi-facetted history under the guidance of prominent and promising scholars of Turkish Studies, but will also allow its readers to hear voices and see images of a fascinating Republican past. Show less
Lawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka: Navigating Pluralities marks a break in understanding the history of Roman-Dutch law in Sri Lanka. Methodologically, it challenges socio-legal studies that concentrate... Show moreLawmaking in Dutch Sri Lanka: Navigating Pluralities marks a break in understanding the history of Roman-Dutch law in Sri Lanka. Methodologically, it challenges socio-legal studies that concentrate on major jurisdictional conflicts alone, emphasizing the lived experience of everyday practices of judicial forums. It uncovers the navigation of plural practices in the Landraad, a judicial forum set up by the Dutch East India Company in seventeenth-century Sri Lanka. A choice of laws came into play in that forum, that choice being significant at varying degrees for different areas of the law such as evidence, inheritance, land, and marriage law. While there was inevitable conflict, the local normative order was as much a social fact for the early colonial rulers as Roman-Dutch law. This is contrary to the received wisdom of the ages that Roman-Dutch law was imposed on the Sinhalese of the maritime provinces under Dutch control. When translated into everyday lives, such adoption of plural practices could rebound on coloniser and colonised in unexpected ways, revealing the complexities of colonial law in practice. Show less
Monsoon Asia was the first venue of global trade, a zone of encounters, exchanges, and cultural diffusion. This book demonstrates the continuing fertility of the Monsoon Asia perspective as an aid... Show moreMonsoon Asia was the first venue of global trade, a zone of encounters, exchanges, and cultural diffusion. This book demonstrates the continuing fertility of the Monsoon Asia perspective as an aid to understanding what South/Southeast Asia, as a connected space, has been in the past and is today. Sixteen tightly knit chapters, written by experts from perspectives ranging from Indology and philology to postcolonial and transnational studies, offer a captivating view of the region, with its rich and variegated history shaped by commonalities in human ecology, cultural forms, and religious practices. The contributions draw upon extensive research and a thorough command of the most recent scholarship. This volume will be an invaluable text for anyone interested in South and Southeast Asia, and for more specialized students in the fields of global and Indian Ocean history, transcultural studies, archaeology, linguistics, and politics. Show less
Whose international matters, and why? How are geographic regions constructed? What are the channels of engagement between a place, its people, its institutions, and the world? How do we understand... Show moreWhose international matters, and why? How are geographic regions constructed? What are the channels of engagement between a place, its people, its institutions, and the world? How do we understand the non-West’s influence in contemporary global interactions? From humanitarianism and activism to diplomacy and institutional networks, South Asia has been a crucial place for the elaboration of international politics, even before the twentieth century. South Asia Unbound gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars from across the world to investigate South Asian global engagement at the local, regional, national, and supra-national levels, spanning the time before and after independence. Only by understanding its past entanglements with the world can we understand South Asia’s increasing global importance today. Show less
Thunder and lightning have been seen from time immemorial as God’s instruments of punishment. Until the invention of the lightning rod by Benjamin Franklin in 1752. In Lightning in the Age of... Show moreThunder and lightning have been seen from time immemorial as God’s instruments of punishment. Until the invention of the lightning rod by Benjamin Franklin in 1752. In Lightning in the Age of Benjamin Franklin. Facts and Fictions in Science, Religion, and Art Jan Wim Buisman shows how the Enlightenment and Romanticism have changed our scientific, religious and artistic image of natural violence forever. In the eighteenth century, thunderstorms are experienced less and less as a threat and more and more as something extraordinary. The image of God and the image of nature changed radically. The religion of enlightened people, for example, was more determined by joy than by fear. And nature was almost experienced as a girlfriend. That had significant consequences because those who no longer had to be afraid of the thunderstorm could play with it without hesitation. That’s what poets, painters and musicians did to their heart’s content. Never before the beauty of the storm was depicted as much in the western culture as during the transition from the Enlightenment to Romanticism. Show less
Parvin E’tesami (1907-1941) is among the few Persian female poets, who has gained nationwide popularity, while her authorship was disbelieved. She is celebrated in a plethora of publications every... Show moreParvin E’tesami (1907-1941) is among the few Persian female poets, who has gained nationwide popularity, while her authorship was disbelieved. She is celebrated in a plethora of publications every year in Iran and beyond. E’tesami is the only female poet who has remained part of the daily lives of people in her society for about a century. Her poetry appears in school curricula both before and after the Revolution of 1979. People use her poetry on social media, particularly in critical times. It is also used in public speeches by Ali Khamenei (r. 1989-present) the supreme leader of the Islamic Republic. This book engages with E’tesami in the transformational context of the early twentieth century in Iran to investigate the controversies around her identity as a popular female poet. It demonstrates that the reason for E’tesami’s paradoxical popularity was not merely her gender, but the transgression of patriarchal Iranian-Muslim gender norms. Show less
There are many publications dealing with the political career of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), who transformed the political landscape of Iran and the Middle East after the Islamic Revolution of... Show moreThere are many publications dealing with the political career of Ruhollah Khomeini (1902–1989), who transformed the political landscape of Iran and the Middle East after the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Most of the research conducted in the West is on Khomeini’s political strategies, while the influential role of mysticism in all facets of his life is ignored. This book is the first study examining Khomeini’s poetry, mysticism and the reception of his poetry both in Iran and the West. It investigates how Khomeini integrated various doctrines and ideas of Islamic mysticism and Shiiism such as the Perfect Man into his poetry. Show less
Fernand Deligny (1913-1996), ‘poet and ethologist’, is mostly known for his work with autistic children and for his influence on the revolutions in French post-war psychiatry. Though neither... Show moreFernand Deligny (1913-1996), ‘poet and ethologist’, is mostly known for his work with autistic children and for his influence on the revolutions in French post-war psychiatry. Though neither director nor a theorist of the image, cinema is constantly called into his social, pedagogical, and clinical experimentations. More interested in the processes of making, he distinguishes ‘camering’ from filming, thus emphasizing not the finished film but a ‘film to come’. This volume provides Deligny’s essential corpus on cinema and the image. It shows both the role of cameras in many of his experimental ‘attempts’ with delinquents and autistic children and his highly speculative reflections on image. Show less
This ethnographic book deals with the emergence of the Wali Pitu (seven saints) tradition and Muslim pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia. It touches upon the issues of translocal connectivity between... Show moreThis ethnographic book deals with the emergence of the Wali Pitu (seven saints) tradition and Muslim pilgrimage in Bali, Indonesia. It touches upon the issues of translocal connectivity between Java and Bali, Islam-Hindu relationship, relations between Muslim groups, and questions of authority and authenticity of saint worship tradition. It offers a new perspective on Bali, seeing the island as a site of cultural motion straddling in between Islam and Hinduism with complexities of local figurations, and belongings of ‘Muslim Balinese’. The study also urges the intricate relationship between religion and tourism, between devotion and economy, and shows that the Wali Pitu tradition has facilitated the transgression of spatial and cultural boundaries. Show less
In the twenty-first century, terms such as globalization, global, and world function as key words at the cusp of new frontiers in both historical writing and literary criticism. Practitioners of... Show moreIn the twenty-first century, terms such as globalization, global, and world function as key words at the cusp of new frontiers in both historical writing and literary criticism. Practitioners of these disciplines may appear to be long time intimate lovers when seen from pre and early modern time periods, only to divorce with the coming of Anglophone world history in the twenty-first century. In recent years, works such as Martin Puchner’s The Written World, Maya Jasanoff’s The Dawn Watch, or the three novels that encompass Amitav Ghosh’s Ibis Trilogy, have rekindled a variant of history and literature’s embrace in a global register. This book probes recent scholarship concerning reflections on global history and world literature in the wake of these developments, with a primary focus on India as a site of extensive theoretical and empirical advances in both disciplinary locations. Inclusive of reflections on the meeting points of these disciplines as well as original research in areas such as Neo-Platonism in world history, histories of violence, and literary histories exploring indentured labor and capitalist transformation, the book offers reflections on conceptual advances in the study of globalization by placing global history and world literature in conversation. In great detail, this monograph provides both new facts and fresh insights that contest existing scholarship. By highlighting their competitive, fluid, and dynamic nature, it undermines the historiography viewing these courts as harmonic, hierarchic, and static. Far from being remote, ritualised figures, we find kings and Brahmins contesting with other courtiers for power. At the same time, by stressing continuities with the past, this study questions recent scholarship that perceives a fundamentally new form of Nayaka kingship. Thus, this research has important repercussions for the way we perceive both these kingdoms and their ‘medieval’ precursors. Show less
Wie ‘zeventiende eeuw’ zegt, denkt al snel aan Rembrandt, Amalia van Solms, Huygens, Van Schurman, en Spinoza, aan de VOC en aan pompeuze grachtenpanden vol weelde en schatten. De Republiek der... Show moreWie ‘zeventiende eeuw’ zegt, denkt al snel aan Rembrandt, Amalia van Solms, Huygens, Van Schurman, en Spinoza, aan de VOC en aan pompeuze grachtenpanden vol weelde en schatten. De Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden was in de zeventiende eeuw dan ook een politieke grootmacht, met wereldwijde handelsbelangen en een toonaangevend cultureel leven. Deze Nederlandse 'gouden eeuw' is vaak geroemd vanwege zijn religieuze tolerantie, artistieke creativiteit en economische innovatie. Tegelijkertijd is hij berucht vanwege betrokkenheid bij oorlogvoering, slavernij en militaire onderdrukking in Azië, Afrika en Amerika. Dit handboek biedt een rijk geïllustreerd en caleidoscopisch overzicht van dit veelbesproken tijdperk, geschreven door internationale experts. Een onmisbare gids voor iedereen die geïnteresseerd is in de mondiale geschiedenis en het dagelijks leven van de Nederlandse zeventiende eeuw. Show less
